Mrs. Cod. You seem dull, Mrs. Lynx.
Mrs. Ly. I’m not in very good spirits.
Mrs. Cod. Ah! we poor wives all have our little troubles.
Cod. And we poor husbands, too. Mrs. Coddle wont let me wear a hair-skin comforter—did you ever hear of such cruelty?
Mrs. Cod. He thinks of nothing but his own personal ease.
Cod. I’m obliged; there’s no one else thinks of it for me.
Mrs. Cod. He’s the most apathetic creature living—no life, no passion, no impulse. I do like to see a husband subject to some little caprices of temper. If Coddle, now, were inclined to jealousy—and would scold me well—and throw things about—and go into a fury now and then—I should be the happiest woman in the world; but he wont—there he sits, from morning till night, as carefully wrapped up as an Egyptian mummy. I really think he is one; he is—he’s King Cheops. Cheops—(aside to MRS. LYNX)—oh, Mrs. Lynx, I’d give the world to make him jealous. But what is the matter with you, have you had words with your husband?
Mrs. Ly. I confess that we have had a trifling disagreement, this morning.
Mrs. Cod. How delightful!—Coddle, why don’t you go into a passion and knock me down.
Cod. My dear, if I were to go into a passion, and suddenly cool, as I know I should, the checking of the perspiration would be the death of me—I should die.